ALA recognizes trio of librarians for innovation award

Librarians Lynn Whittenberger, Meredith Wynn, and Alex Valencia have won the 2020 ProQuest Award for Innovation from the American Library Association (ALA) for a cross-departmental project to make the Libraries’ video game collection easier to access and discover.

The award recognizes significant and innovative contributions to electronic collections management and development practice. The award is sponsored by the Collection Management Section (CMS) of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS).

“Winning the ProQuest Innovation Award demonstrates that, at the NC State University Libraries, collaboration is key to innovation,” the team wrote. “By bringing people with expertise in different areas together, we were able to expose our video game collection in a way that is more discoverable and delightful for users.”

Whittenberger, Wynn, and Valencia led this collaborative effort between the Libraries departments of Acquisitions & Discovery, Collections & Research Strategy, Learning Spaces and Services, and User Experience to create an innovative discovery solution for gaming collections and virtual reality content. The project came from a realization in 2018 that patrons were having difficulty accessing and discovering the games and gaming equipment held by the Libraries.

The team standardized and updated gaming terminology for librarians, creating an internal glossary. This allowed substantial cataloging improvements for library users. Each gaming console in our collection now has a dedicated webpage on the Libraries site that lists all the games and accessories available for that system, as well as their current checkout status.

The trio will receive a citation and a $2,000 award donated by ProQuest and presented during the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago in June at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony and Membership Meeting.